Affaire Royale

  “Brie looks relaxed,” Christina commented as she kept her hand light on Reeve’s shoulder through the dance.

  “Your being here helps.”

  She shot him a look. Though she’d seen to it that they’d already had a private talk, Reeve hadn’t completely mollified her. “It would have helped if I’d been here sooner.”

  He liked her, perhaps because of the tongue-lashing she’d delivered. “You still think I should be horsewhipped.”

  “I’m thinking it over.”

  “I want what’s best for her.”

  She studied him a moment. “You’re a fool if you don’t already know what that is.”

  Brie worked her way expertly through the couples and the groups. Janet Smithers stood discreetly in a corner with her one and only glass of wine.

  “Janet.” Brie waved the curtsy aside. “I was afraid you’d decided not to come.”

  “I was late, Your Highness. There was some work I wanted to see to.”

  “No work tonight.” Even as Brie took her hand she was casting around for a suitable dance partner for her secretary. “You look lovely,” she added. Janet’s dress was both plain and quiet, but it gave her a certain dignity.

  “Your Highness.” Loubet stepped to her side and bowed. “Miss Smithers.”

  “Monsieur.” Brie smiled, thinking he’d be her solution.

  “The ball is a wonderful success, as always.”

  “Thank you. It’s going well. Your wife looks stunning.”

  “Yes.” The smile bespoke pleasure and pride. “But she’s deserted me. I’d hoped Your Highness would take pity and dance with me.”

  “Of course.” Brie sipped her wine, then found, to her satisfaction, that Alexander was within arm’s reach. “But I’ve promised this dance to my brother.” Plucking at his sleeve, she gave him a bland look before she turned back to her secretary. “I’m sure Miss Smithers would love to dance with you, wouldn’t you, Janet?”

  She’d successfully maneuvered them all. Pleased that she’d given her secretary a nudge onto the dance floor, Brie accepted Alexander’s hand.

  “That wasn’t very subtle,” he pointed out.

  “But it worked. I don’t want to see her huddling in a corner all night. Now someone else is bound to ask her to dance.”

  He lifted a brow. “Meaning me?”

  “If necessary.” She smiled up at him. “Duty first.”

  Alexander cast a look over Brie’s shoulder. Loubet’s slight limp was less noticeable in a dance. “She doesn’t look thrilled to be dancing with Loubet. Maybe she has some taste, after all.”

  “Alex.” But she laughed. “In any case, I haven’t told you how handsome you look. You and Bennett—where is Bennett?”

  “Monopolizing the little American girl.”

  “Little—oh, you mean Eve.” She lifted a brow, noting the disapproval. “She’s not that little. In fact, I believe she’s just Bennett’s age.”

  “He should know better than to flirt with her so outrageously.”

  “From what I’ve seen, it’s hardly one-sided.”

  He made a restless move with his shoulders. “Her sister should keep a tighter rein on her.”

  “Alex.” Brie rolled her eyes.

  “All right, all right.” But he skimmed the room until he’d found the slim brunette in the ripe red dress. And he watched her.

  She lost track of how many dances she danced, how many glasses of wine she’d sipped at, how many stories and jokes she’d listened to. It had been, she realized, foolish to be nervous. It was all a blur, as such things should be. She enjoyed it.

  She enjoyed it more when she found herself waltzing in Reeve’s arms again.

  “Too many people,” he murmured against her ear. Slowly, skillfully, he circled with her toward the terrace doors. Then they were dancing in the moonlight.

  “This is lovely.” There were flowers here, too, creamy white ones that sent out a delicate vanilla fragrance. She could breathe it in without having it mixed with perfumes or colognes. “Just lovely.”

  “A princess should always dance under the stars.”

  She started to laugh as she looked up at him, but something rushed through her. His face seemed to change—recede, blur? She wasn’t sure. Was it younger? Were the eyes more candid, less guarded? The scent of the flowers seemed to change. Roses, hot, humid roses.

  The world went gray. For a moment there was no music, no fragrance, no light. Then he had her firmly by the arms.

  “Brie.” He would have swept her up, carried her to a chair, but she held him off.

  “No, I’m all right. Just dizzy for a moment. It was …” She trailed off, staring up into his face as if she were seeing it for the first time. “We were here,” she whispered. “You and I, right here, on my birthday. We waltzed on the terrace and there were roses in pots lining the wall. It was hot and close. After the dance you kissed me.”

  And I fell in love with you. But she didn’t say it, only stared. She’d fallen in love with him when she was sixteen. Now, so many years later, nothing had changed. Everything had changed.

  “You remember.” She was trembling, so he held her lightly.

  “Yes.” Her voice was so quiet he leaned closer to hear. “I remember it. I remember you.”

  He knew better than to push, so he spoke gently. “Anything else? Do you remember anything else, or only that one night?”

  She shook her head and would have drawn away. It hurt, she discovered. Memory hurt. “I can’t think. I need— Reeve, I need a few moments. A few moments alone.”

  “All right.” He looked back toward the ballroom, crowded with people. She’d never be able to make it through them now. Thinking quickly, he took her down the terrace, through another set of doors. “I’ll get you to your room.”

  “No, my office is closer.” She hung on, pushing herself to take each step. “I just want a moment to sit and think. No one will bother me there.”

  He took her because it was closer, and it would take him less time to go back for the doctor. It would take him less time to tell Armand that her memory was coming back and the next step had to be taken. The arrests would be made quietly.

  The backup guard was well trained, Reeve told himself. He wouldn’t have even known he was there if Armand hadn’t explained that Brie was watched always, not only by Reeve, but by others.

  The office was dark, but when he started to turn on the lights, she stopped him.

  “No, please. I don’t want the light.”

  “Come on, I’ll sit with you.”

  Again she resisted. “Reeve, I need to be alone.”

  It was a struggle not to feel rejected. “All right, but I’m going to get the doctor, Gabriella.”

  “If you must.” Her nails were digging into her palms as she fought for control. “But give me a few moments first.”

  If her voice hadn’t warned him away, he would have held her. “Stay here until I get back. Rest.”

  She waited until he closed the door. Then she lay down on the little sofa in the corner of the room, not because she was tired, but because she didn’t think she had even the strength to sit.

  So many emotions. So many memories fighting to get through, and all at once. She’d thought that remembering would be a relief, as if someone released strings around her head that had been tied too tightly. But it hurt, it drained and it frightened.

  She could remember her mother now, the funeral. The waves and waves and waves of grief. Devastation—hers, her father’s, and how they’d clung to each other. She could remember a Christmas when Bennett had given her a silly pair of slippers with long elephant tusks curling out of them. She could remember fencing with Alexander and fuming when he’d disarmed her.

  And her father, holding out his arms for her when she’d curled into his lap to pour out her heart. Her father, so straight, so proud, so firm. A ruler first, but she’d been born to accept that. Perhaps that’s why she’d fallen in love with Reeve. He, too
, was a ruler first—of his own life, his own choices.

  She didn’t know she was weeping as one memory slipped into another. The tears came quietly, in the dark. Closing her eyes, she nearly slept.

  “Listen to me.” The whisper disturbed her. Brie shook her head. If it was a memory, she didn’t want it. But the whisper came again. “It has to be tonight.”

  “And I tell you it feels wrong.”

  Not a memory, Brie realized dimly, but still a memory. The voices were there, now, coming through the dark. Through the windows, she realized, that opened up onto the terrace. But she’d heard them before. Her tears dried. She’d heard them before in the dark. This time she recognized them.

  Had she been so blind? So stupid? Brie sat up slowly, careful not to make a sound. Yes, she remembered, and she recognized. Her memory was back, but it didn’t hurt any longer; it didn’t frighten. It enraged.

  “We’ll follow the plan exactly. Once we have her out, you take her back to the cottage. We use a stronger drug and keep her tied. There’ll be no guard to make a fatal mistake. At one o’clock exactly, a message will be delivered to the prince. There, in the ballroom, he’ll know his daughter’s been taken again. And he’ll know what he has to pay to get her back.”

  “Deboque.”

  “And five million francs.”

  “You and your money.” The voice was low and disgusted and too close. Brie gauged the distance to the door and knew she had to wait. “The money means nothing.”

  “I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing Armand had to pay it. After all these years and all this time, I’ll have some restitution.”

  “Revenge.” The correction was mild. “And revenge should never be emotional. You’d have been wiser to assassinate him.”

  “It’s been more satisfying to watch him suffer. Just do your part and do it well, or Deboque remains in prison.”

  “I’ll do my part. We’ll both have what we want.”

  They hate each other, Brie realized. Why hadn’t she seen it before? It was so clear now, but even tonight, she’d spoken to both of them and suspected nothing.

  She sat very still and listened. But there was nothing more than the sound of footsteps receding along the stone. They’d used her and her father. Used her while pretending concern and even affection. She wouldn’t be used any longer.

  Still, she moved quietly as she crossed the room. She’d find her father and denounce them both. They wouldn’t take her again. She twisted the knob and opened the door. And found she wasn’t alone.

  “Oh, Your Highness.” A bit flustered, Janet stepped back and curtsied. “I had no idea you were here. There were some papers—”

  “I thought I told you there’d be no more work tonight.”

  “Yes, Your Highness, but I—”

  “Step aside.”

  It was the tone that gave her away, cold and clear with passion boiling beneath. Janet didn’t hesitate. From her simple black bag, she took out a small, efficient gun. Brie didn’t even have time to react.

  Without fuss, Janet turned and aimed the gun at the guard who stepped from the shadows, his own weapon raised. She fired first, and though there was only a puff of sound, he fell. Even as she started toward the guard, Brie felt the barrel press into her stomach.

  “If I shoot you here, you’ll die very slowly, very painfully.”

  “There are other guards,” Brie told her as calmly as she could. “They’re all through the palace.”

  “Then unless you want other deaths on your hands, you’ll cooperate.” Janet knew only one thing—she had to get the princess out of the corridor and away before anyone else happened along. She couldn’t risk taking her in the direction of the ballroom. Instead she gave Brie a quick push.

  “You’ll never get me off the palace grounds unseen,” Brie warned her.

  “It doesn’t matter if they see us. None of the guards would dare shoot when I have a gun to your head.” Her plans were in pieces and it wasn’t possible to tell her partner. They wouldn’t be able to slip a drugged, unconscious Brie out of the dark side entrance watched by the men on their own payroll. They wouldn’t be able to close her quietly into the trunk of a waiting car.

  The plan had been daring, but it had been organized. Now Janet had nothing.

  “What were you planning to do?”

  “I was to give you a message privately that the American needed to speak to you, in your room. He would have already been disposed of. Once there, there would have been a hypodermic for you. The rest would have been simple.”

  “It’s not simple now.” Brie didn’t shudder at the easy way Janet had spoken of killing Reeve. She wouldn’t allow herself to shudder. Instead she made herself think as Janet led her closer to the terrace doors. And the dark.

  * * *

  “It’s so beautiful!” Eve had decided to give up being sophisticated and enjoy herself. “It must be fantastic to live in a palace every day.”

  “It’s home.” Bennett had his arm around her shoulders as they looked down over the high wall. “You know, I’ve never been to Houston.”

  “It’s nothing like this.” Eve took a deep breath before she turned to look at him. He was so handsome, she thought. So sweet. A perfect companion on a late spring night, and yet …

  “I’m glad to be here,” she said slowly. “But I don’t think Prince Alexander likes me.”

  “Alex?” Bennett gave a shrug. He wasn’t going to waste time on Alex when he had a beautiful girl in the moonlight. “He’s just a little stuffy, that’s all.”

  She smiled. “You’re not. I’ve read a lot of … interesting things about you.”

  “All true.” He grinned and kissed her hand. “But it’s you who interests me now. Eve—” He broke off with a quiet curse as he heard footsteps. “Damn, it’s so hard to find a private place around here.” Unwilling to be disturbed, he drew Eve into the shadows just as Janet shoved Brie through the doorway.

  “I won’t go any farther until I know everything.” Brie turned, her white dress a slash of light in the shadows. And Bennett saw the gleam of the gun.

  “Oh, my God.” He covered Eve’s mouth with his hand even as she drew the breath to speak. “Listen to me,” he whispered, watching his sister. “Go back to the ballroom and get my father or Alex or Reeve MacGee. Get all three if you can. Don’t make a sound, just go.”

  She didn’t have to be told twice. She’d seen the gun, as well. Eve nodded so that Bennett would remove his hand. Thinking quickly, she stepped out of her shoes and ran barefoot and silent along the dark side of the building until she came to a set of doors.

  “If I have to kill you here,” Janet said coolly, “it’ll be unpleasant for both of us.”

  “I want to know why.” Brie braced herself against the wall. She didn’t know how she’d escape, but she had escaped before.

  “Deboque is my lover. I want him back. For you, your father would exchange the devil himself.”

  Brie narrowed her eyes. Janet Smithers kept her passion well concealed. “How did you get past the security checks? Anyone who’s hired to work for my family is—” She stopped herself. The answer was easy. “Loubet, of course.”

  For the first time, Janet smiled genuinely. “Of course. Deboque knew of Loubet, of the men Loubet bribed to work for him as well as your father. A little pressure, the threat of exposure, and the eminent minister of state was very cooperative. It helped, too, that he hated your father and looked at the kidnapping as a means of revenge.”

  “Revenge? Revenge for what?”

  “The accident. You remember it now. Your father was driving. He was young, a bit reckless. He and the diplomat suffered only minor injuries, but Loubet …”

  “He still limps,” Brie murmured.

  “Oh, more. Loubet has no children, nor will he ever, even with his young wife. He has yet to tell her, you know. He’s afraid she’ll leave him. The doctors assure him his problem has nothing to do with the accident. He chooses to believe othe
rwise.”

  “So he helped arrange the kidnapping to punish my father? That’s mad.”

  “Hate will make you so. I, on the other hand, hate no one. I simply want my lover back.” Janet held the gun so that it caught the moonlight. “I’m quite sane, Your Highness. I’ll kill you only if I must.”

  “And if you do, your lover stays where he is.” Brie straightened and called her bluff. “You can’t kill me, because I’d be of no use to you dead.”

  “Quite right.” But she aimed the gun again. “Do you know how painful a bullet can be, though it hits no vital organ?”

  “No!” Infuriated, terrified, impulsive, Bennett leaped out of the shadows. He caught both Brie and Janet off guard. Both women froze as he lunged toward the gun. He nearly had it before Janet got off the first shot. The young prince fell without a sound.

  “Oh, God, Bennett.” Brie was on her knees beside him. “Oh, no, no, Bennett.” His blood seeped into the white silk of her dress as she gathered him into her arms. Frantically, she checked for a pulse. “Go ahead and shoot,” she hurled at Janet. “You can’t do any more to me. I’ll see you and your lover in hell for this.”

  “So you will.” Reeve spoke quietly as the doorway was filled with light, men, uniforms and guns.

  Janet watched Armand go to his children and the guards stand firm. She held her gun out, butt first. “No dramatics,” she said as Reeve stepped forward to take it. “I’m a practical woman.”

  At a signal from Reeve she was flanked and taken away.

  “Oh, Papa.” Brie reached out. Armand was on his knees beside Bennett. “He tried to get the gun.” Brie pressed her cheek to her brother’s hair. “The doctor—”

  “He’s right here.”

  “Now, now, Gabriella.” Dr. Franco’s kind, patient voice came from behind her. “Let the boy go and give me room.”

  “I won’t leave him. I won’t—”

  “Don’t argue,” Bennett said weakly. “I’ve got the world’s worst headache.”

  She would have wept then, but her father’s arm came around her, trembling lightly. “All right, then,” she said as she watched Bennett’s eyes flutter open. “I’ll let him poke and prod at you. God knows I’ve had my fill of it.”

  “Brie …” Bennett held her hand a moment. “Any pretty nurses at the hospital?”

  “Dozens,” she managed.

  He sighed and let his eyes close. “Thank God.”

  Holding out a hand for Alexander, Brie turned into Reeve’s arms. She was home at last.

  Epilogue

  He’d promised her they’d have one last day on the water. That was all, Reeve told himself as the Liberté glided in the early-morning wind. They’d have one last day before the fantasy ended. His fantasy.

  It had nearly been tragedy, he thought, and couldn’t relax even yet. Though Loubet had already been taken when Eve had rushed into the ballroom, Brie had been alone with Deboque’s lover.

  “I can’t believe it’s really over,” Brie said quietly.

  Looking at her, neither could he. But they weren’t thinking of the same thing. “It’s over.”

  “Loubet—I could almost feel sorry for him. An illness.” Brie thought of his pretty young wife and the shock on her face. “With Janet, an obsession.”

  “They were users,” he reminded her. “Nearly killers. Both Bennett and that guard were lucky.”

  “I know.” Over the past three days, she’d given thanks countless times. “I’ve killed.”

  “Brie—”

  “No, I’ve faced it now. Accepted it. I know I was hiding from that, from those horrid days and nights alone in that dark room.”

  “You weren’t hiding,” he corrected. “You needed time.”

  “Now you sound like my doctors.” She adjusted the tiller so that they began to tack toward the little cove. “I think parts of my memory, or my feelings were still there. I never told you about the coffee—about Janet’s telling me that Nanny always fixed it for me. I never told you, I think, because I never really